The Case-Shiller home price index is a powerful way to look at the story of housing in America. You can see the boom and bust all in one simple graph.

But when we go on the radio to talk about home prices, a graph isn't much good to us — nobody can see it.

So we converted the Case-Shiller graph into musical notes.

Jess Jiang/Case-Shiller home price index

We gave the sheet music to Timothy McDevitt, a baritone who's getting a master's degree at Juilliard. Then we got Karl Case and Robert Shiller — the economists who created the index — to listen to the music weigh in.

A Decade of Dallas Home Prices

Shiller said Texas had a big housing boom and bust a few decades ago. That helped the state dodge the latest round of housing mania:

They've been through that, they've seen it, and they're not ready for another bubble, and they just didn't participate in this one. It's like opera: You only have one grand moment when the heroine and the hero die on stage. You can't do that again right away.

Secret bonus track:

Here's the past decade of home prices in America — with both melody and words:

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